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Title: The Many Deaths of Comrade Binh
Subtitle: Tales from the Vietnam War
Author: Kenneth Levin
Narrator: Danny T. Levin
Format: Unabridged
Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
Language: English
Release date: 10-06-15
Publisher: Mushroom Stamp Productions
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Publisher's Summary:
The short stories contained in The Many Deaths of Comrade Binh are fiction. This does not, however, mean they aren't true. Retired naval officer Kenneth Levin readily admits to some artistic license, but each tale is based on actual events that occurred during the Vietnam War.
Twice wounded in the line of duty, Levin remembers the horrors of war all too well. He draws inspiration from his own experiences and those of comrades, allies, and mercenaries as well as civilians and members of the North Vietnamese army.
Levin never forgets how deeply war affects both combatants and bystanders or how battle sometimes forces humans to act inhumanely. Many of his stories are capable of moving you to tears - or disturbing enough to keep you up at night.
At the same time, humanity has a knack for survival even in wartime, a truth reflected in Levin's stories of humor, irony, and love.
Despite being war stories, The Many Deaths of Comrade Binh never glorifies war. Levin knows his subject too well to romanticize battle or mistake jingoism for patriotism. Comparable to Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War, Levin's stories are about the terrifying impact of war on ordinary people.
Members Reviews:
The cost of war
At a time when chick lit has invaded the market in great abundance, it is even more striking to read a book such as The Many Deaths of Comrade Binh. This is a book written by a man and mainly intended for a virile audience. Even more than in Levinâs previous work, Crazy Razor, in this collection of short stories about the Vietnam War he draws sharp contrasts between the horrors of war, fear, panic, depersonalization, cruelty, macabre and innocence, children, injustice, meaningless pain and death on both sides.
Usually, authors favor a cause, a people or some of their characters, but the beauty of Levinâs position is that he does not. There is good and bad in nearly all the protagonists, and the potential for everything in between.
Yet the dichotomy is not always black or white as he tells some of the stories in such a personal, emotional, delicate manâs way, such as the piece where he is dancing the Bamba with his grand-daughter or the story of Frenchieâs grand-daughter wearing his medals--the âjewelryâ--on Buddhaâs birthday. He avoids melodrama and keeps an effective matter-of-fact tone in gruesome tales such as the unforgettable Thanksgiving ballooned corpse or the lethal spread of Agent Orange along the Saigon River. The inability to express emotions in such a horrific world is well described for instance in the story of Mark the dog, a charming, lovable animal who ends up blown up by a mine. But his owner is so emotionally spent that he feels only blank inside.
And yet along all this sadness, Levin unexpectedly finds also humor for instance in the very funny story of the barf bags thrown from a helicopter that the Vietcong take for biological warfare. This contrasts with the sad irony of The Joke of 1968 where two soldiers are run over by a tank as they are finally shaking hands after a long personal battle against one another.
I loved the story of the Moonrise: it takes a long time to grow into oneâs own shoes. The Big Fat Ugly Fish is so evocative, you can smell, taste, hear everything that is described.
